Factors for Publishing Research in Top-tier Journals

To publish is to make content publicly known. However, for an article or paper to be published, there are certain criteria that it should pass. Reviewers or critics normally have factors that are being considered in choosing a paper to be published. Relating to research works, top-tier journals like ACM have high-standards that are set in accordance with how to select a paper to be published. ACM sets high standards of quality for its publications. It is paramount to uphold these standards in the development and selection of content.

According to an article of Kate Devine (2001), “Writing a paper that will get published”, Jeff Skousen, professor of soil science, West Virginia University, points out that there are varying levels of journal prestige and not every paper qualifies for the most well-known. Top-tier journals usually reject more than 50 percent of the papers submitted to them, and some have rejection rates as high as 70 percent, Skousen says. These journals are rigorously edited and require very sound science and results that have meaning and application in the field. Other journals have a much lower rejection rate and are not as tightly edited, but they generally contain good research.

While originality can be a persuasive factor, "People are still able to get their work published even if it seems similar to previously published work," observes Skousen. Although one may think that most of the pertinent questions in a subject area might be answered after long periods of testing and experimentation that does not seem to be the case, he continues. "I'm surprised that there are not that many new ideas in our journals today compared to past decades," he remarks. "Sure, we get new instruments and tools that allow greater precision or accuracy of measurement, but the ideas are not that dissimilar, nor are the results that dissimilar after data collection and interpretation." Flower-Ellis predicts that more and more papers will be assessed as "valuable confirmations" rather than as "original contributions to knowledge." Another consideration is the manuscript topic. A hot topic "is more likely to be published than is an equally sound paper dealing with a currently unfashionable subject," says Flower-Ellis The scientific community does display some of the proverbial characteristics of lemmings, in publication no less than in choice of research area."
The criteria publishers use as measures for accepting a paper vary a lot more than is sometimes realized, notes Lewenstein. Publication is not a cut-and-dried process--it's infinitely variable and flexible. In particular, "peer review" is not a simple criterion, he continues. Some journals may send an article to three to five reviewers, and the editors make an informed judgment by weighing all reviews. Other journals may send an article to a single reviewer and make simple yes/no decisions based on one review. Some journals may do a lot more editorial work with an author, while others take manuscripts more or less as submitted. Although the review process can be flexible, acceptance criteria are relatively standard. Experts consulted offer simple advice for optimizing publishing success. Many say influential factors include the need for clarity, originality of thought, novelty of finding, organization, completeness, and good writing. The experts' advice may seem evident. Skousen, however, states that the most elegant research is usually simple and direct. According to Byrne, who published an article last year on common reasons for manuscript rejection, flawed or poorly planned study design and lack of detail in methods were the two elements most often leading to rejection.
In addition, in a blog article, it was stated that some factors that are most observed by most top-tier journal in recognizing a qualified research paper for publishing in top-tier journals are uniqueness, relevance, presentation, and credibility.

Uniqueness or originality, in the sense that a research topic is uncommon, something that is somehow yet to be known and something different from the average topic studied. The relevance of the paper is also a great consideration for publishing. It entails the significance it delivers to the society. How a paper is presented is also an issue. The paper should be in a form of proper documentation. Another factor is the researcher’s credibility to conduct a study. To some, it is important to know that the researcher is of reliable researcher because usually many people normally give credit or recognitions to the researcher’s previous successful studies.

Evaluation of Research Work - Good or Bad?

Various criteria are set to how a research study should be properly assessed. There are different standards on how to define and identify if a research work is good. It varies accordingly to reviewers of diverse analysis and method of evaluation.

There are different kinds of research works, however the decisive factor for evaluation are comparable in ways. According to answers.com, a good research is well-informed, thorough, intelligent, and systematic, allows for the possibility that one may be mistaken and allows for verification. A good research should be knowledgeable with its subject. It should also be detailed with information regarding the focus of the study. The research must take on specific methods; it must be organized and ordered. Moreover, it should be falsifiable and should considerably be confirmed and be verified.

The study should be able to answer and support all questions related to the topic. It should contain sufficient information and resources to back up the study. If it takes on statistical matters, it must be precise and accurate. Figures and diagrams have to be explained and elaborated in manners that it can be understood. The terminologies to be used should be simple and clear.

Taken from the reportbd.com (2009), a research should satisfy the certain criteria. The purpose of the research should be clearly defined and common concepts be used. The research procedure used should be described in sufficient detail to permit another researcher to repeat the research for further advancement, keeping the continuity of what has already been attained. The procedural design of the research should be carefully planned to yield results that are as objectives as possible. The researcher should report with complete frankness, flaws in procedural design and estimate their effects upon the findings. The analysis of data should be sufficiently adequate to reveal its significance and the methods of analysis used should be appropriate. The validity and reliability of the data should be checked carefully. Conclusions should be confined to those justified by the data of the research and limited to those for which the data provide an adequate basis. Greater confidence in research is warranted if the researcher is experienced, has a good reputation in research and is a person of integrity.

According to faculty.goucher.edu (2009), how the research paper is evaluated is based on four (4) criteria. These are sources, thesis, audience and mechanics and documentation. This article is mainly intended for the research paper evaluation of students. With regard to the sources, it inquires if the paper uses the right kinds of scholarly or popular-scholarly sources to support its claims? It refers to the consideration if the resources used in supporting the paper are intellectual and logical enough. Is the paper based on at least some recent article-length sources? Articles are the sources of the most recent and most tightly focused analysis on your topic. Having updated source of information are also significant. Gathering latest information and updates on related topic should be observed. Are the sources recent enough to be persuasive? Scholarship in the social and natural sciences becomes outdated quickly. Conclusions based on out of date evidence fail to persuade. Students who want to succeed in these majors must become persistent enough researchers to seek out the most recent and authoritative sources on their topics. Humanities sources have undergone immense theoretical upheavals in the last decades of the Twentieth Century, and for many fields, secondary scholarship written much before 1980 can be suspect or unacceptable because its analytical methods are controlled by theoretical assumptions that are no longer acceptable. The fields cannot engage in wholesale book-burning and web-site erasure to eliminate these problematic sources, but an early part of Humanities' majors' upper-division work involves becoming familiar with the currently acceptable theories and analytical methods, and with the sources from earlier scholars work which are still acceptable.

Next is about thesis. Is the paper organized by an independent thesis which at least uses reasoning and/or evidence from one article to contribute substantively to the reasoning and/or evidence in any other article, thus avoiding mere summary of the research? Is the thesis carefully composed to avoid claiming absolute knowledge if its evidence supports only possible or probable conclusions? Is the thesis supported by logically sound reasoning?
These questions are asking whether the author has moved beyond the stage of merely reporting what others say, and into the stage of being able to think creatively about the topic. Early attempts to do this may be tentative and uncertain. To protect your reputation for careful thinking, make sure you distinguish clearly among certain, probable, and possible conclusions. Be content to claim your conclusions are "possibly" correct unless you can eliminate many of the contending conclusions to claim they are "probably' correct. Do not claim your conclusions "certainly" explain the evidence unless you have eliminated all alternative explanations. Logical fallacies often arise because writers unconsciously struggle to force their research to support to their earliest intuitions, guesses, hunches, or hypotheses about what is true. (Think of how often you heard high-school writers say "I'm going to do some research to get sources that support my thesis.") Beware your own prejudices about what you think the evidence will reveal before you've impartially examined it. Let the evidence speak and you can hardly go far wrong.

III. Audience: Does the paper address a scholarly audience and correctly estimate the level of knowledge that audience can be expected to possess? Does it avoid telling experts obvious things, like defining terms of art or basic concepts, providing needless "background," and identifying experts to each other with unnecessary specificity (e.g., "the biologist Lewis Thomas" in a paper addressed to biologists)? Does it always specify the source of generalizations about evidence by correct citations of scholarship?

IV. Mechanics and Documentation: Does the paper use standard academic English usage and sentence construction, coherent and well-ordered paragraphs, logical paragraph transition, and a fully functional title, introduction, and conclusion? Does the paper accurately and consistently use a documentation style appropriate to the discipline (MLA, APA, CBE, or U. Chicago), or does it at least use MLA style accurately and consistently?

Be especially careful when using terms of art and jargon from the discipline you're just entering. As an "apprentice," you may make mistakes that a more experienced scholar would not make, and they're the kind of mistakes that damage your authority, so you should pay special attention to those peculiar kinds of words and phrases.
Double your efforts to proofread your final draft in order to catch these old errors that will come back when you least want them to appear. You can prevent one typical source of dangerous errors if you start your paper's first draft with a list of sources as you accumulate them in your research, properly formatted in the documentation style appropriate for your topic's discipline. This is far to important to leave for the last five minutes of the writing process, and if you develop the habit of doing it early you will save yourself countless disappointments in later papers. Just build the paper on top of that source list, and add to it every time you develop a new source, and you can spend your last hours polishing your prose rather than worrying about documentation format.

The citations I have itemized are some references of how a research work is evaluated. As I have mentioned, there are various ways of evaluating a research work and it usually varies on the critic or reviewer. To further analyze and weigh up the appropriate procedures of evaluation, additional comprehension of the range should be performed.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_qualities_of_good_research
http://www.reportbd.com/articles/57/1/Criteria-Qualities-of-Good-Scientific-Research/Page1.html
http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng105sanders/research_paper_evaluation_criter.htm

Research ?= Future Career

What do you think is the role of research topic in deciding your future career?

This has been by far, one of the very toughest questions I have encountered. This had actually made me profoundly think of many matters. It had me reflect on the significance of a research study in our future profession. It even made me thoroughly analyze if there is a relationship between the two ideas.
I am no genius. Only an average, a mediocre type, I supposed. And what I have attained at the moment are the products of my determination and hard work. I am not degrading or looking down at myself and my capabilities. It is just that after reading the question, it made me think of how my future career would turn out to be and it made me evaluate my competence and potential particularly in the field of IT.

I have thought of numerous research topics but I suppose none was suitable enough to be considered. It was a frustration. I was not able to come up of a good research topic. That was when thoughts hit my mind. Am I not capable enough? Do I suit to be in this field? Do I have any interest at all in IT? Well, it was really bothersome. I guess this is where the connection of the research topic in settling on my future career in IT.

Research is basically developing and improving an existing initiative. It is to conduct further search and investigation on a particular development or discovery. It is through which critical thinking is being practiced. In my perspective, an individual possessing an adequate knowledge regarding a certain field of expertise should be able to come up with research ideas relating to it. With the scope of familiarity, awareness, and intellectual capacity of a specific field, it would heighten the probability of originating or putting together a topic for exploration and analysis.

To be able to think up or formulate an exceptional subject matter for research is to be able to shape out the opportunities that would be set down to someone. With a good research study, possibilities and chances or even breaks may be prearranged to the researchers. A breakthrough of a study will possibly lead to one’s successful path of career. I believe this would define and assess your capacity and range of knowledge. Your research topic may be the determinant in which area you are most engrossed with and through this, validate where your field of interest lies. This may determine and establish a definite forte or strong point of an individual particularly in the field of IT.

With the establishment of a research study, its conduction, principally its completion would be a great contribution to the society of information technology. This would also be representation of an individual’s involvement in the progress of IT. Through this, new information and further learning would be made available to the community particularly IT society.

Not only that an individual may be able to have contributions to the society with having a research study, but this will also provide great chance of being compensated for the development of an initiative. Everything today is of value. A topic itself possesses its own worth. More on if the study will be productively undertaken. There is always a valid equivalent value for all that is shaped out of a person’s potent mind. These ideas are owned and of value to any individual. And we are all undeniably aware that these are possessions and owners have certain legitimate rights over the property. We normally refer this right as the intellectual property right. It is crucial for the developers and researchers to be familiar that formulating a topic would significantly cost enough.

We should be mindful with the understanding of the significance of a research topic alone. It may be of little value but it is the stepping stone in proceeding and conducting a research study. It is the part where the commencement of undertaking a study is. It is an element of a research study which is the root and origin of the whole process. This section of research would notably shape and influence an individual’s upcoming career thus we should give it value.